Editor’s Note: No. 29

I knew Sam Starnes wrote great and gritty novels about life in the South, but I didn’t know he was a golfer. And I certainly didn’t know he grew up in the same town as 20-time Tour winner and golf playboy Doug Sanders, where Sam’s mother had known Sanders as someone a respectable Southern girl “should be wary of.”

“Sanders from Cedartown” is the sort of story that makes me grateful for The Golfer’s Journal. It’s a story about golf, certainly, but it’s about family and hometowns and the nature of Southern storytelling. It has images that are hard to believe, and it’s long, because some stories deserve more than a social media post, and some readers are willing to put down their phones and curl up with real storytelling, presented by a writer who knows how it’s done.

I’m pleased to welcome Sam to the pages of The Golfer’s Journal, along with Micah Pueschel, Karen Crouse, and Angus MacVicar, all debut contributors in No. 29. When we set out to create each issue, we have a few goals in mind: Take you places you haven’t been. Introduce you to characters with whom you might like to spend a round. Give you a break from the noise and offer a chance to recall your connection to and love of this game. But above all our aims at The Golfer’s Journal is great storytelling, and in No. 29, I hope you find that we have lived up to these ambitions, and that this book earns its spot among your colorful collection of TGJ spines.

This book will take you on adventures to Iceland and Santa Barbara and will have you playing muni golf alongside an architect, a missionary, and an airplane mechanic. You’ll hear about golf dreams come true in Tennessee and in Scotland, and you’ll get to know a man who, when not booking gigs for U2 and Harry Styles, builds things like the Sphere and a golf course in the desert that plays like a small piece of heaven. When we select our stories for each issue, we look for the subjects that get us most excited not just as editors, but as golfers. Reading Matt Chominski’s breakdown of Bill Murray’s swing from Lost In Translation was irresistible, a story that deserved the frame-by-frame swing sequence you’ll find in the pages of No. 29. 

We aim for variety in our selections, but our mantra is always that the best story and best image win. So four times a year, you get the best we’ve got. Carefully curated. Rigorously crafted. Deliberately presented. And just as you’re always grinding for improvement, so are we. We are kindred sickos in this regard, always looking for what we can do new or do better, not settling for formulas or bowing to the algorithm. Thank you, as always, for allowing us to chase our best. Thank you for chasing it with us.

Sincerely,
Tom Coyne
Editor

No. 29 will take you from to the corners of Dunaverty (above, left) to the Northern Lights of Iceland (above, right) to Doug Sanders’ bathtub in Houston (below). Sit back and enjoy the ride, as well as the silence.